Fire training devices are widely used to train emergency personnel how to perform necessary tasks in an environment engulfed in flames. The state of the art has replicated buildings, vehicles, aircraft, industrial sites and the like that are subjected to controlled and regulated activation of live flames at selected locations in the replicated structure.
In general, the art has employed plumbed and wired training structures with fixed propane gas lines connected to burners in designated areas. The burners have been of a wide variety of types and are typically connected to an igniter, which has a pilot light flame engaging a thermocouple or the like to keep valved gas flow available to the burner so long as the thermocouple senses that the pilot light is lit. The burner itself, and particularly the pilot light igniter, operates in a harsh environment, necessarily exposed to high-pressure water or chemical spray, foam or the like. While the pilot light is typically shielded and baffled from the spray and foam, failures of the pilot are not uncommon, and such failures tend to diminish the effectiveness of the training session with flames being prematurely or inadvertently extinguished.
In the prior art, the burners have typically been in the nature of a water tray having propane gas lines passing therethrough with apertures allowing for the propane gas to bubble through the water and out of a fire grid, ignited by the igniter flame. These burner trays are problematic in that they are not low profile, but rather on the order of several inches in height in order to accommodate the passing gas line and water bath. Being of such a profile, they provide an impediment to the trainee having to maneuver thereover. Moreover, the water tray necessarily requires refilling, and the structure and size of the water tray burner is such that it is not given to ease of placement, repositioning or replacement.
The hard-wired and plumbed nature of the prior art igniters and burner trays, combined with a lack of reliability of the igniter and the physical size and impediment of the water tray burner, has greatly limited the utility of these prior art structures and associated systems. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a fire trainer igniter that is flameless, portable, and given to ease of placement at any of numerous desired locations in a fire trainer. There is an additional need in the art for a burner or burn plaque that is waterless, of low profile, and capable of effectively distributing the gas over a defined region in a substantially uniform and controlled manner, the burn plaque being given to ease of positioning and connection and disconnection with an associated gas line in a fire trainer.